On Sept. 29 we flew from Barcelona to Paris, to start the
second part of our land travels in Europe.
We had booked an apartment through Airbnb.com for 3 days in Paris, and
our host had e-mailed us directions as to how to get to the place on public
transportation. We managed to get there
using the metro and train connections, and arrived at the place about 2 in the
afternoon. At first we were disconcerted
by the exterior appearance of the building, and then the appearance of the
winding staircase to the 4th floor apartment (no lift). Everything looked very dilapidated. But the apartment itself had been renovated,
and was clean and bright.
Our host had left the key for us and we were able to relax and enjoy the
place a bit before he came over to meet us and solve any issues we had. Turned out it was exactly what we needed,
because it had a washing machine and dryer, ironing board, fridge, TV, etc. and
we were very happy there. It was located
in a very mixed neighborhood, with many shops, restaurants, and bars although
there were also many Muslim residents. And
it was very close to a metro station. We
spent the time there catching up on resting, laundry, and sightseeing. The next day we had a free walking tour
booked, starting at Notre Dame cathedral, so we took the metro to get
there. Right along the Seine River, was
this gorgeous building, which turned out to be one of the municipal buildings.
It was so picturesque to
look down the river and see some of the bridges:
We discovered that some of the bridges have
become what they call “lock bridges”.
Lovers bring a padlock with their 2
names on them, and lock them on the bridge walls to show that they are locked
together eternally. But because the
locks are so heavy, they have started to cause the sides of the bridges to fall
down. The city is trying to solve the
problem by taking them down and installing Plexiglas sides, but so far they
haven’t removed very many of the walls with locks on them. Of course, Notre Dame is famous for its
flying buttresses:
Another place we passed on our walking tour,
in the Latin Quarter, was the Pantheon, which was under renovation but still
impressive.
It is modeled on the
Pantheon in Rome, but is now basically a mausoleum with some distinguished
citizens of Paris buried there. Elaine
and I also enjoyed a picnic lunch at the Luxembourg gardens, which were
absolutely beautiful with impressive walkways, flowers, buildings, and packed
with people enjoying it all.
We also visited the outside gardens and areas
of the Louvre.
We have already
been there, so we didn’t feel compelled to visit it later when our tour group
had a chance to do an optional visit inside.
At the Place de la Concorde there are impressive fountains, and also
this obelisk.
It is the
largest square in Paris and is at the eastern end of the Champs Elysees, the
most famous boulevard in Paris, with the Arch de Triomphe at the other
end. To get to the sights at the other
side of the river, we crossed the very picturesque Alexander III bridge.
It connects the Champs Elysees quarter and the Invalides and Eiffel
Tower quarter. Besides some nice
sculptures, there are beautiful light fixtures on the bridge:
With an impressive gold dome, everyone notices the Les Invalides museum,
which is a complex that has a lot of war memorabilia, as well as the history of
the time it was a hospital, and is additionally the place where notable people
are buried, such as Napoleon.
Our
walking tour ended at the Eiffel Tower, which is always impressive. It was built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair, and is the most visited single monument in the world.
When we joined our Gate 1 tour group at the Paris hotel, it was located
very close to the Eiffel Tower, so we were able to go out at night to see it
when it was lit up.
This was really fun because every hour on the
hour at night between 8 and 12, for 5 minutes, they turn on lights that make
the entire tower “sparkle”. It was
impressive. I took a video of it, but I
can’t post it here – if you want me to send it to you, e-mail me and I
will.
The Gate1 tour group was slightly smaller than the Spain
group, and about 16 were a bunch of college fraternity guys and their wives who
were all over 70!! They had kept in
touch all these years and done previous travels together. We hung around with everyone else. On our bus tour of the city with the group, we
were able to stop and take some pictures at the Arc de Triomphe:
It honors those who fought and died for
France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, and the names of the
generals and battles are inscribed inside the arches. It is also the tomb of the unknown
soldier. Another impressive sight is the
Opera House, which we didn’t see until just before our tour left the city.
The next time we are there, I would like to tour this place. On one of the days when Elaine and I were on
our own, we took the metro to Sacre Couer.
This is a Catholic church located at the top of the area known as
Montmartre, the highest point of the city. There is a big lawn area on the hill in front
of it and it was absolutely packed with people enjoying the warm day. Sometimes the view is amazing, but this day
it was hazy.
So we left Paris and
had our first stop in Epernay, about 130 km from Paris. It is the main place in France where
champagne is made and stored. We went to
the Mercier Caverns, where the first sight we saw was a huge wooden cask:
The history of the house of Eugène Mercier is told in a visual spectacle
before visiting the cellars. Then, two panoramic elevators took us 30 meters
underground, where a train guided by laser beam helped us discover a part of
the 18 km of tunnels, where this is what we saw:
The tunnels seem extensive:
Then we went back to enjoy
a glass of champagne.
Next stop was
Dijon, the capital of the Burgundy region.
This is one of the main squares:
It is an architecturally
rich town and has an interesting cathedral with many diverse gargoyles on the
front. Between the 11th and
15th centuries, it was a place of great wealth and power. One of the interesting streets was this one,
very narrow and with many half-timbered houses still there from the 15th
century.
Of course, the
main sight during the drives between places of interest was vineyards and wine
estates.
One of the main wine
centers in France is the town of Beaune, and is sometimes called the “capital
of burgundy wines”. It is a walled city,
with perhaps 50% left of it, and has many Roman features remaining. This is a picture of part of the town:
Our
group did a wine tasting in an old church there which is now a wine store with
wine cellers in the basements under the church.
Moving on to
Aix-en-Provence, our group had a walking tour starting along the Cours Mirabeau.
It is lined with fine houses and
buildings and has many impressive fountains.
The buildings are of a yellow sandstone type which reminded us of the
Cotswolds in the UK. This is a picture
of the city hall:
The next day we
took an optional tour to St. Remy, where we saw some very old buildings such as
these:
It was a quiet place, not
heavily visited by tourists, and we had a nice walk there. This was one of the interesting
fountains:
The heavy mineral content of the water
spilling out the mouth of the sculptures have caused a limestone buildup, and
then plants started growing on it to make this display. Outside St. Remy is the Saint-Paul asylum,
where Vincent van Gogh was a patient. He
painted many of the scenes he saw around the building and from his window, and
now they are on display there on the grounds:
As we drove between
villages, there were tree-lined roads:
Les Baux-de-Provence has a spectacular position in the mountains and is
crowned by a ruined castle at the top of the town.
It is a convoluted town of houses, stores and
restaurants all made of rock.
It was
started as a town in 6000BC and has been continuously inhabited all this
time. This is a view of some houses in
the valley below:
Now it mostly survives on tourism, although
in the past the mineral bauxite was discovered and mined near here.
Carcassone, one of
Europe’s most perfect fully walled cities, and a UNESCO world heritage site, was
our next stop.
The outer walls and towers are huge and
impressive.
Then there is a huge,
dry moat, and here we are at the inner wall:
There are many shops, restaurants, and houses
in the town, and huge old cathedral where we had a musical performance by a
group of guys from Eastern Europe who were trying to sell some CD’s. Many of the houses were very old and built of
stone, with interesting facades:
On the way out of town, we stopped to take an overview picture of the
entire town, but this picture does a much better job of showing the enormity of
the whole thing:
Given its popularity
with tourists today, it is surprising that in the mid 1800’s, France almost
demolished the whole place because it had fallen into disrepair, and lost its
importance as a fortification. Thank
goodness they didn’t!
For a real change
of pace, our next stop was Lourdes. It
is not far from the Pyrenees mountains, and is a major Catholic pilgrimage
site. There are only 17,000 residents,
yet they get more than 5 million visitors per year thanks to visions of the
Virgin Mary reported by a young girl named Bernadette in 1858.
The
area near the basilica is full of narrow streets lined with shops selling
religious artifacts, and hotels where all the faithful stay.
Every evening there is a procession and ceremony on the huge square in
front of the basilica and there are hundreds of people there in wheelchairs and
in rolling beds who have come there hoping for a miracle.
Everyone brings candles, which they light and carry around during the
ceremony. The Catholic church has officially
recognized 69 healings which have taken place here. This is a picture of the huge basilica
It is built on the top of the grotto
where Bernadette had her visions.
St. Emilion, our
next stop, one of the principal red wine areas of Bordeaux, is a very scenic
town which specializes in pate as well as wines. It sits in a bowl, so there are steep streets
leading down through town:
The
UNESCO heritage town also has Romanesque churches and ruins, as well as one of
the tallest buildings which was this clock tower:
We
stopped at one of the local places and did some pate, cheese, and wine tasting.
It was on the way to the city of
Bordeaux, which we were very impressed with when we visited. It is a large city, but has the old walled
city area which has many fascinating buildings and charming squares. It is the world’s major wine industry capital
and is on the UNESCO world heritage list.
Despite the fact that it is a very old city, there is a very modern tram
system, even servicing the old historic part of the city.
This is the Grand Theater, which was built in
the 18th century:
The
Place de la Bourse, is a huge building on a huge square and is the stock
exchange.
It is located right
across the street from the river, which leads to the port. At the river, there was a re-creation of the
tall ship Hermione, General Lafayette’s 18th century ship which
helped America win the Revolutionary War.
It is scheduled to sail to America in 2015.
Some of the participants were in costume:
One of the more impressive parts
of the old city was one of the old city gates:
There was also a very impressive fountain,
located at the base of the Column of the Girondins, and this is the sculpture
in it:
There was a huge carousel
and carnival in the nearby park.
The
Baron Otard cognac dynasty was founded in 1795.
It is housed in a medieval chateau in the town of Cognac, which is
fascinating to visit. Originating in the
9th century, this castle went from being a fortress during the Hundred Year War
to the home of the Valois family in the 1500s and future King of France,
Francois I. In 1688 the Scottish Baron
James O’tard followed King James II into exile in France and acquired the
property, where his expensive and delicious cognac is now produced, stored in
the cellars and dungeons to age, and bottled.
We did a tour and tasting there and were educated about this liqueur,
and impressed with the product.
One of the bottles cost more than 4000
Euros!! Here are some of the casks being
aged in the dungeon:
In order for
the liqueur to be called “cognac”, it has to be produced in the Cognac region
of France, made from certain kinds of grapes, produced in copper pot stills, and
aged a minimum of 2 years. There are different
grades of cognac, and also there is some blending involved by the producer: the
2 year old cognac is VS for “very special”; the 4 year old is VSOP for “very special
old pale”; XO is between 6 and 20 years old and stands for “extra old”; and
then there are other grades above that.
Of course, the price goes up as the liqueur is aged longer.
On the way back
to Paris, we stopped to visit the Chateau de Blois, in the Loire Valley. It is a royal chateau because it was the
residence of several French kings and is also the place where Joan of Arc went
in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army
to drive the English from Orleans. This is
just one of the sides:
Here is
another in a different style because it was built at a different time:
It has 564 rooms and 75
staircases. The inside is brightly
decorated such as it was during the 18th century:
There are wonderful tapestries:
And even a Queen’s bedchamber:
This is the view from the wall towards the
Loire River:
When Elaine and I
were touring around Europe in a campervan in 1989 with our kids, we visited a
different chateau on the Loire called Chenanceau. This is a picture of that chateau, which was
built over the river so they could stop passing boats and collect tolls:
Another interesting chateau we
stopped at this time was Chambord:
It was not open this early and we didn’t have time to tour it, but it
was interesting to see the grounds, and especially the roof tops:
Not too far from
Paris is the city of Versailles, with the very famous palace of Louis XIV. Good thing we have been there before because
touring the interior was not part of this Gate1 tour. This is a picture of the front courtyard, and
you can see that there was a really long line of people trying to get in:
Our group was there to tour the
gardens, and we had to be there at a certain time because there are wonderful
fountains in the gardens, but they are only on at certain times. This one was right behind the actual palace:
This shows the quite extensive
lawns and the lake which are in the gardens:
This was the sculpture in
the fountain just in front of the lake:
There were many other fountains but they were very spread out and it was
impossible to see them all during the short time they were turned on. This was very annoying, because the fountains
were on all the time when we were here in 1989.
No doubt people finish their tour of the house and want to see them, and
they aren’t on!!!!
So our tour ended
in Paris on Oct. 12, and on the 13th Elaine and I took the train to
Rotterdam. This is a very pretty city,
and we wished we had more time to explore it, but the weather was not good and
it was raining part of the time. We had
enough time to walk around and find the cruise port area, and take this
picture:
The port is across the
bridge and in front of the unique tall building. The next morning we took a taxi to the port
and had a horrible time getting there, because of the traffic, and an even more
horrible time getting on the Oasis of the Seas for the return journey to Ft.
Lauderdale because of inept staff. On
the ship we had a happy reunion with our friends Bruce, and Doug:
The next day a lot of people boarded in
Southampton, and they had a bad experience getting on as well. We weren’t very happy there either, because
they made us get off the ship to go through customs, and then sit in the
terminal for hours before they would allow us back on the ship. The Oasis had been in dry dock in Rotterdam
and some of the changes they made were not complete, so they continued working
on it during our cruise. We also did not
like many of the changes they made, and lots of the good crew members had been
taken over to the new ship, the Quantum, and replaced by inexperienced
crew. So the cruise back was not nearly
as enjoyable as the one we had taken over to Europe in early September. There was one stop, in Vigo, Spain. We got off and explored with Bruce and
Doug. It was a lovely, sunny day and it
was fun walking around. This is a statue dedicated to the fishermen of Vigo,
because that is one of their major industries:
Another traffic roundabout had this
impressive horse statue:
Our good friends,
Letty Reeser and Denice Osborne were also on the ship, and here we are having
lunch with them, and the guys, in Giovanni’s:
One of the big events was when our friends Bob
and Jon, from Toronto, made Pinnacle.
This means that they have
acquired over 700 cruise days with Royal Caribbean, and they get extra perks
each time they sail. Towards the end of
the cruise, on Oct. 25, we had dinner at Sabor, the new restaurant onboard with
the 4 friends:
And, since it was
our 6th anniversary, they had arranged for a celebratory cake for
us:
The entertainment on the ship now included
the Broadway show, Cats:
The
costumes were good but the performance was too long and a lot of people left at
the intermission. Another gang of
friends we enjoyed hanging out with on this cruise was John and Jackie Doherty,
and Jackie’s parents, Jim and Julie.
They all were enthusiastic participants on the flow rider, and we
enjoyed watching them. This picture was
taken on formal night when we all had dinner at Giovanni’s:
One of our perks, being Diamond+ members, was
having lunch at Chop’s. Here are some of
the friends we enjoyed there: David,
Mary, Charlie, Clare, and Debbie:
There is also a short zip line that goes over the Boardwalk section of
the ship. Here is Elaine in all the
gear, getting ready to zip along:
Also
on board were some old RV friends, Joe and Carla Calwell, who have now sold
their rig and moved to Florida.
We
had several pleasant visits in the Diamond lounge with them, and other mutual
friends, Maddie & George. The cruise
ended on Oct. 27 and we returned to Doug White’s house in Ft. Lauderdale.
I had acquired a
cold the last few days of the cruise, so I used the 4 days we were there to try
to recover. We also had to wash clothes
and repack because we were flying to London in order to board the Independence
in Southampton for another transatlantic cruise. Our flight did not go well, because we spent
an entire day in the Miami airport waiting for our flight to leave for Chicago
and then on to London. Finally, we were
able to get switched to a Swissair flight to Zurich, and then back to London. But this put us in at Heathrow at 1:20PM and
we only had until 3:30PM to get to Southampton or we would miss the ship. We had to jump in a taxi and pay 224 pounds
(!) but he got us there with 15 minutes to spare. We are still in the process of getting Choice
Air (our booking agent) to reimburse us this money. The Independence has been sailing out of the
UK for years, and this was going to be the last transatlantic, so the ship was
very full of Brits. Also on the ship
with us were four friends from the UK:
Sheila and Dave Matthews,
and Mazen & Sue Khammash:
We had lots of good fun with them in the
Schooner Bar each day doing the trivia quiz – they are experts at it!!! The pool area on the ship has whimsical
statues in it and colorful lights at night:
We enjoyed several ice shows during the
cruise, with wonderful costumes
Our first port was in the Caribbean – the island of St. Maarten. It was a lovely, sunny day and very
warm.
We walked into town and found the Apple
store, which was good because we were each having an issue with an Apple
product. Got those fixed and did a
little internet there too. But Elaine
was starting to feel bad because she was now getting the cough and cold that I
had been suffering with for several weeks, so we went back to the ship. Good thing we have been to this island
before, and explored it fairly thoroughly.
It is the smallest island in the world shared by 2 nations – we were
docked on the Dutch side, called St. Maarten, and you can take a public bus to
the French side, called St. Martin. The
next port was St. Thomas, and again we never got off the ship. Then we went to Puerto Rico. It is a beautiful place to sail into so I
took a picture of the fort on the point on the way into San Juan.
It is the Castillo de San Cristobal and was built by the Spanish in 1783
to protect the city from attack. Part of
it was demolished to help traffic flow into and out of the walled city. We walked in the area around the port a
little bit, and rested on the ship most of the day. One of the last nights on the ship we had
dinner at Chops with Cecelia Borges, the Loyalty Ambassador.
She
was on a ship with us before and we had become friends with her. It was a delightful evening, especially since
we were all leaving the ship soon – she was being sent to the Legend. When we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we said
goodbye to Sue, Mazen, Dave & Sheila and Doug picked us up from the
port.
We only stayed
with Doug overnight, because we were booked on the Allure which left for a 1
week Caribbean cruise starting on the 16th. This was so we could experience the Allure
before it too goes into dry dock in Europe next year, and they change it,
hopefully doing a better job than they did on the Oasis.
It was very similar to the Oasis and we enjoyed
the Concierge Lounge and some friends that were onboard from other
cruises. One of them was Laura Spyrka,
and here is a picture of all of us on the Rising Tide Bar:
The musical show on the ship was Chicago, and
we enjoyed that a lot. Another
performance we liked was later in the week and was called “Blue Planet”. It opens with a huge tree, and as the music
starts, performers start to emerge from where they are on the tree – at first
you can’t even tell that it is anything except a tree. There were 17 people in this tree!! Can you see them?
Both Elaine and I were still recovering from
our colds, and this is the first cruise we have ever taken where we did NOT go
to the gym to work out at all. Too bad,
because there is a huge, well equipped gym and not many people were using
it. We didn’t get off at any of the
ports either.
When we returned
to Ft. Lauderdale, on Nov. 23, we took a taxi to Doug’s house and stayed
overnight. The next day he returned from
his cruise, and he drove us to pick up our car where it was being repaired by a
friend of his. Then we returned to our
RV in storage and got it set up to start traveling again. Our last night with Doug, we took him to the
Olive Garden near his house for a farewell dinner:
He was a wonderful host and we were very
fortunate that we could stay with him so many times between our various
cruises. We drove through Florida and
had to make a stop at a Camping World to have our toilet replaced. It was having a couple of major
problems. We stayed at their campground
there on the 25th, and that night there was a HUGE rainstorm that
went through. We were in Bartow, not far
from Tampa, and there was about 4 inches of rain!! The next day we parked our rig in the storage
area of the Brandon Elks. Then we drove
over to Madeira Beach, not far from Saint Petersberg, where some cruise
friends, David & Colleen DeForest have a house 1 block from the beach. They
had made arrangements with a nearby hotel for us to park our rig there for
$50/week, but we were nervous about driving it across the bridges to get out to
the barrier island where they live.
Also, they were leaving on a cruise on Nov. 29. So we just stayed at their house for several
days. Here is a picture of them with
Elaine on the neighborhood walk we did the first night:
The next day we did a 3 mile walk along the
beach in the morning. There were many
Great Blue Herons hanging around:
It was a sunny and beautiful day, and here we are with Colleen:
Thanksgiving Day we had a simple
but delicious turkey breast, salad, green beans and baked potato dinner.
No one wanted lots of leftovers
because of leaving soon on cruises. The
next day I wanted another beach walk, but it was way too cold and windy (in the
50’s), which is unusual for Florida, even at this time of year. We went thrift store shopping with David
& Colleen and then headed back to our RV in Brandon.
